Teams from the VGC ’14 Viriginia Regional Championship
With a brand new generation and format, players had very little information to go off of in the first Pokémon VGC event of the season. These are the teams that top cut in Virginia:
Masters
1. Ray Rizzo (Ray)
2. Enosh Shachar (Human)
3. Joshua Edwards
4. Toler Webb (Dim)
5. Wolfe Glick (Wolfey)
6. Derek Gazis
7. Nicolas Peckman (Ace Emerald)
8. Patrick Brodarick (wer)
9. Tommy Cooleen (Tman)
10. Hanna Coder
11. Daniel Litvin (TalkingLion)
12. Westin Lee
13. Ashton Cox (linkyoshimario)
14. Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar)
15. Ryan Gadea (The Knights of Wario Land)
16. Cameron Kicak (Stormfront)
Senior Division
1. Cameron S. (Drizzleboy)
2. Paul C. (pwny person)
Junior Division
1. London S.
2. Christian F.
Masters Top Cut Usage Statistics
| # | Pokemon | # of Uses | % Usage |
| 1 | Garchomp | 9 | 56.2% |
| 2 | Talonflame | 9 | 56.2% |
| 3 | Kangaskhan | 7 | 43.8% |
| 4 | Rotom-Wash | 7 | 43.8% |
| 5 | Salamence | 6 | 37.6% |
| 6 | Charizard | 4 | 26.7% |
| 7 | Amoonguss | 3 | 20% |
| 8 | Ludicolo | 3 | 20% |
| 9 | Mawile | 3 | 20% |
| 10 | Rotom-Heat | 3 | 20% |
| 11 | Chandelure | 2 | 13.3% |
| 12 | Clawtizer | 2 | 13.3% |
| 13 | Ferrothorn | 2 | 13.3% |
| 14 | Gardevoir | 2 | 13.3% |
| 15 | Klefki | 2 | 13.3% |
| 16 | Mamoswine | 2 | 13.3% |
| 17 | Manectric | 2 | 13.3% |
| 18 | Scrafty | 2 | 13.3% |
| 19 | Tyranitar | 2 | 13.3% |
| 20 | Abomasnow | 1 | 6.7% |
| 21 | Absol | 1 | 6.7% |
| 22 | Aromatisse | 1 | 6.7% |
| 23 | Chesnaught | 1 | 6.7% |
| 24 | Diggersby | 1 | 6.7% |
| 25 | Florges | 1 | 6.7% |
| 26 | Greninja | 1 | 6.7% |
| 27 | Gourgeist | 1 | 6.7% |
| 28 | Gyarados | 1 | 6.7% |
| 29 | Hydreigon | 1 | 6.7% |
| 30 | Krookodile | 1 | 6.7% |
| 31 | Lucario | 1 | 6.7% |
| 32 | Machamp | 1 | 6.7% |
| 33 | Magnezone | 1 | 6.7% |
| 34 | Mienshao | 1 | 6.7% |
| 35 | Mr. Mime | 1 | 6.7% |
| 36 | Nidoqueen | 1 | 6.7% |
| 37 | Politoed | 1 | 6.7% |
| 38 | Rotom-Mow | 1 | 6.7% |
| 39 | Scizor | 1 | 6.7% |
| 40 | Vaporeon | 1 | 6.7% |
| 41 | Venusaur | 1 | 6.7% |
| 42 | Weavile | 1 | 6.7% |
| 43 | Zapdos | 1 | 6.7% |
If you have the missing team data for the top cut placements we don’t have, please do let us know and we’ll update this page!
About the Author
Firestorm is one of the co-founders of Nugget Bridge and the Community Manager for eSports Tournament Platform Battlefy. He has been playing Pokémon since 1999, competitively since 2007, and attending tournaments since 2010. He lives in Vancouver, Canada with a degree in Interactive Art & Technology + Communications. You can follow him on Twitter at @rushanshekar.
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Shame so few Pokemon are viable this year. Hate to say I told you so but… nah, no I don’t.
I’m actually a little surprised at how decentralized the Mega usage in the top cut was, though. I don’t think it’s news more than Charizard, Kangaskhan, and Mawile are very strong, contrary to what many people seem to think, but we ended up with about 3/5 of the Pokemon who can Mega Evolve in the top cut at a glance (though I’m sure some of them didn’t have their stones). I don’t think it’s too surprising we saw a decent selection, since Megas tend to be team centerpieces and changing that centerpiece is an easy way to differentiate your team(or by not using one at all, apparently…), but apparently there were lots of different ways to be successful at this one.
I’m still not in love with the format itself, but I’m sure impressed with what Generation 6 has done to the game in terms of teambuilding options and balancing the game, even though I’m sure things will get a little more homogeneous as the season goes on. 43 different Pokemon(44, really, with both Charizard Megas) over 16 teams is pretty much unheard of since we’ve sort of entered an age where the playerbase is pretty good at every event(as opposed to, say, 2011 Regionals). Neat stuff.
(Also, good thing Aaron tweeted the competition screen… you guys should upload more pictures. We’re really creeping the bottom of the barrel right now.)
The tea that is used in the picture for this article is the team I use (*-*). What made you put that as the picture by chance?
But thanks for posting this some of these teams are interesting a lot of them are more standard than I hoped for.
I can’t tell if your post is serious or not. 30 of the 42 Pokemon we know of in the Top 8 are unique. Calling anything “Standard” with those stats is ridiculous.
Do you guys think that using a “unique” pokemon take human for example who used chesnaught, gives you an advantage over your opponent because you don’t know what to expect?
Nicholas Peckman had Kangaskhan/Gardevoir/Salamence/Klefki/Chandelure/Mamoswine.
Minor thing, but the percentages are off: Garchomp in 8/16 teams should obviously be 50%, Charizard in 4/16 25% etc.
Can someone explain to me: Absol/Diggersby/Weavile/team?
However, I’m quite impressed by the metagame. I expected it to be boring as usual with brand-new formats, but it’s basically the total opposite instead. That’s pretty cool, and makes me look forward to what the future has in store even more.
I am not sure you always have the advantage but obviously it makes it more difficult for your opponent to predict your moves, although in this case Chestnaught is not something many would be threatened by going off these usage statistics.
Not sure what you guys are on about in terms of standard and unique, but no Pokemon on the list surprise me which I guess is what BrewCrew was implying, however Ludicolo on a few teams without Politoed is pretty surprising.
I ran Ludicolo on my Sand team last year. He provided an excellent counter to opposing Rain teams who would give me the Rain I needed for Swift Swim as well as Fake Out Support.
That Chestnaught was most likely a good check for Rotom-W and Kangaskhan which are both major threats so maybe I was wrong about him in my earlier comment TheLegend05. Although with Charizard, Talonflame and Rotom-H being popular I bet he is difficult to use, but then again I guess that is why he is on a rain team. Would like to see Human’s battle videos that would be fun to watch.
Ohh I love Enosh’s team. He used croc!!
I’m not sure how I feel about the complete lack of Aegislash here. I’m not too fond of it myself and think its a bad metagame call at the moment, but its one of those things that keeps cropping up on Battle Spot and Japanese blogs so they clearly rate it pretty highly. Its a little like 2012 Escavalier in that it seems popular in Japan (and Korea from the few I’ve played on Battle Spot), so if I wonder if it too will gain popularity in the west. Maybe the Japanese playstyle really suits slow bulky Steel-types, idk.
That said, theres a bunch of things here everyone suspected had potential but didn’t think would be good until a bit later in the season. I’m really interested to see Mr. Mime getting usage already, as I think its something everyone has been hyping in the back of their minds but has been waiting for a metagame shift for it to really shine.
Definitely a more interesting set of Pokemon than I’d anticipated and I’m intrigued to see if it stays this open for the next few regionals.
Bulletproof Cheskaught actually walls a decent amount of things including Amoongus, Venusaur, and Tyranitar.
Why am I not surprised to see smeargle and kangaskhan only on the junior team?
I’m again Dylan.S and I used kangaskhan, Mawile, Rotom-W, Garchomp, Dragonite, and Meowstic.
God I’m terrible at wording.
I really dislike the whole “this is what the top players use” type of analysis mid regional season. Things like ferrothorn will be countered a lot harder. I don’t think many people will disagree that the more data available, the stronger players will do better. I am going to be competing for a worlds spot against players who get time to analyze what I used to make top 16 in a regional where I got to play Ray, Wolfe, and Enosh in a row.
I am really just mad because I won’t have time to remake a team before Florida. Just showing the 6 pokemon I used isn’t a huge advantage. But having a 5 minute team preview after looking at the pairing sheet is better than having a 90 second team preview.
Maybe I am the only person who feels this way, but could you at least scramble the placements and not attach names to teams in the future?
Maybe they were trying to flynch out and outspeed the opponent while building up their “bulky” diggersby or other sweeper they chose. Doesn’t absol learn Serene Grace and Air Slash? Or abuse the improved crits from slash and night slash. Weaville, I’m thinking it had, Swords Dance, Fake Out, Ice Shard and maybe shadow claw? or some other hitter. And possibly trying to pickpocket the enemy items and just hack and slash before they got to catch up? well, regardless, we saw how well they did in the end.
His Diggersby was Scarfed with Wild Charge, the Weavile was there for the fastest Fake Out and to put huge pressure onto Garchomp, and I’m pretty sure the Absol was Scope Lens/Super Luck so that Night Slash could always crit.
Shachar’s team looks significantly different to any team I’ve seen before so congratulations to him for making it work and coming second. From what I gathered Ray didn’t let up at all throughout the duration of the tournament. It’ll be interesting to see what team he’s going to come up with when World’s approaches
Just a small error but Nicholas Peckman is actually spelled Nicolas. I faced him for round 2 and we both enjoyed the battle so much we got connected on FB. He was telling me he wished his name would be corrected and I don’t think he’s on nugget bridge so I’m gonna say something for him, lol.
Yeah, I used the number that would be right if species clause didn’t exist as opposed to if it did because doing this stuff at 5 am is not a very good plan (though 8/15 also “obviously” isn’t 50% since there aren’t 16 teams listed.)
I’ll get that and the other stuff in a sec
Hmm, I’m mixed about revealing teams used by the top cut players. On one hand, with no videos and no stream, this is the only insight other players get into Regionals they don’t go to. But yeah, privacy issues for people going to multiple events is pretty serious. Imo, either ask permission or better yet just wait until each block of regionals is done before giving away everyone’s stuff. We still get to see everything that gets used, and players can go about their three-weekend tournament spree without everyone knowing their team. Ray put up his team for everyone to analyze, counter, and copy if they so please. I respect that, but that was his choice.
Information is free and trying to stop the spread of it is silly. If you were relying on the surprise factor of your team instead of how well you play it, you probably weren’t going to win anyway. It’s especially strange to complain about it in a game where you have a finite amount of moves on your team. Theoretically everyone is trying to make a team that covers as many matchups possible, but you can never fit every single thing you want – so playing vs something like that Mr. Mime team still puts you at a tactical disadvantage since nobody is going to waste slots on specifically countering that.
Its nothing to do with surprise factor. Its the fact that anyone who is going to a Winter Regional in the next few weeks has the opportunity to practice match-ups against specific teams from this thread in order to have an advantage against players that they know are attending. As PrettyLittleLiar said, instead of his opponents just having the 90 seconds of team preview to decide what they are going to do vs him, they have the best part of 2 weeks to practice against his specific 6 Pokemon, learn what their best lead options are etc. Its nowhere near as bad it would have been this time last year, with your full moveset, spread and items for all to see on Pokecheck, but its still pretty disadvantageous to people trying their chances at multiple regionals.
I doubt anyone is going to be upset if we don’t get usage information until after all regionals are over, or if individual players have their team omitted until their regionals run is done.
I actually kinda agree with Matt on this. It’s partially my responsibility too because I didn’t argue the other direction at all, but if I had put this together this time (I just added the table) I would have waited until after Florida to publish this stuff. I think damage is done this time and we should just put the stuff from next week when we get it, but I think in the Spring cycle it’d be better to wait. I can’t do anything about what Ray posts on his blog, obviously, but as far as this stuff.
With that said, I don’t think having the Pokemon info available is a big deal as long as it isn’t stuff like items/EVs/moves, especially since assuming people are going to use the same team repeatedly isn’t a very good plan and it isn’t nearly as good scouting data (which we don’t want to be providing people) as it is metagame data (which we do want to be providing people) as a result. I understand the concern, for sure, though… probably not the way we should have done this.
You know people can just as easily share team data with their friends. ‘Scouting’ is always going to be a thing and these posts help it be less of an effort for people to find out what someone used, but if someone cared enough to find what the team was I’m sure they would be able to either way. I’m for these posts because it will definitely help newer players find what works on a team rather than simply trying to counter them. I understand the general concern, but now with battle videos not being a thing it’s really nice to have these articles. If battle videos were a thing still players could just find out teams from that, and even movesets and items. Because of all this I don’t see why it’s so harmful to have these articles if we’ve been able to know all this in the past already.
I don’t believe that this was a bad thing though. Even if it was done rather quickly. I believe that it shows the efficiency in information gathering that is available to us in this day and age. And even with the reveal of items, lineup and the even more classified information like EVs Ivs Nature and moveset, I find it rather influencial to the community and the scene, but in a positive matter. The passage of tactics and new strats only lets the community mature and evolve a bit from it. Take for instance the dark void smeargle, not too much to worry about their with the countless trump card we can throw at it to negate its negative influence from our team. This “heads up” of incoming power houses only provides us with a new fear to be intimidated from. We’ll figure out ways around out, but it’s not like everyone will be dedicated to only seeking out that team to counteract. We still have to worry about other potential threats and strats. It just makes the rest of us aware is all. So we know when we’re gonna be getting screwed.
There’s always going to be a balance when it comes to information sharing. Everyone wants their stuff to be private, but of course, as soon as you use your team even once, that is completely out of your hands. Anonymizing the owners of the teams in our articles seems like a good compromise, and we’ll always get some more detailed team reports anyway from people who presumably aren’t planning to use their team again (like Ray).
And of course, if you’re worried about people knowing your items, just don’t use any!
This is correct except for Absol, which was simply Swords + Sucker Punch :]
When reading this. Makes me sad about my team, Because I only have maybe 3 of pokemon that are used most and ive exchanged two of them because I couldnt get them to work how I want them. The rest arent even mentioned in this top list. Not even sure How I will get past regionals this year.